Molecular mechanisms of microbe-enhanced plant performance under nitrogen limitation

Nitrogen (N) is the most abundant and essential mineral for plants. It is a component of nucleic acids and proteins; notably rubisco for photosynthesis.

The details

As the world population gows and available arable land decreases, higher demand for crop production has come with increased use of chemical fertilizer; of which N is the major component. However, the use of N fertilizers in high input farming regions such as Europe, China and India, results in emissions and leaching. There is an urgent need to reduce nitrate leaching into groundwater.

In contrast, low input farming regions like Africa require additional N. To cope with the global N problem, plant growth-promoting rhizobacteria (PGPR) might play a crucial role as a biological fertilizer due to their ability to fix atmospheric nitrogen. Many Pseudomonas spp. have been tested as PGPR because of their distinctive traits: production of growth regulators, siderophores, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), protection enzymes, and N-fixation.

Pseudomonas koreensis has not been tested previously, so we are testing it with the cereal crop model  Brachypodium distachyon for its ability to be a PGPR, as well as uncovering molecular mechanisms by combining omics technologies available in Germany and Australia.

Graduate researcher profile: Stefan Sanow

I started my PhD at the Forschungszentrum Jülich in September 2019. I received my B.Sc degree in Biology at Heinrich-Heine-University, Düsseldorf, Germany in 2016 and my M.Sc. degree in Biotechnology at FH Aachen, Campus Jülich, Germany in 2019.

Contact: s.sanow@fz-juelich.de

Supervision team

• The University of Melbourne: Professor Ute Roessner, Dr Robert Walker, Professor Michelle Watt
• Forschungszentrum Jülich: Dr Borjana Arsova, Dr Silvia Schrey
• The University of Bonn: Professor Gabriel Schaaf